Enlil (nlin), 𒂗𒇸 (
EN = Lord + LIL = Loft, "Lord of the Open" or "Lord of the Wind") was the name of a chief deity listed and written about in
Sumerian religion, and later in
Akkadian,
Hittite,
Canaanite and other Mesopotamian clay and stone tablets. The name is perhaps pronounced and sometimes rendered in translations as
Ellil in later
Akkadian, Hittite, and Canaanite literature. In later Akkadian, Enlil is the son of
Anshar and
Kishar.
Enlil was considered to be the god of breath, wind, loft and breadth (height and distance).
Origins
One story names his origins as the exhausted breath of
An (god of the heavens) and
Ki (goddess of the Earth) after sexual union.
The myth of Enlil and Ninlil discusses when Enlil was a young god, he was banished from Dilmun, home of the gods, to Kur, the underworld for raping a goddess named Ninlil. Ninlil followed him to the underworld where she bore his first child, Nergal, and/or the moon god Sin (Sumerian Nanna/Suen). After fathering three more underworld-deities (substitutes for Sin), Enlil was allowed to return to Dilmun.
Enlil was known as the inventor of the mattock (a key agricultural pick, hoe, ax or digging tool of the Sumerians) and caused plants to grow.
Cosmological role
Enlil, along with
Anu/An,
Enki and
Ninhursag were gods of the
Sumerians.
By his wife Ninlil or Sud, Enlil was father of the moon god Nanna/Suen (in Akkadian, Sin) and of Ninurta (also called Ningirsu). Enlil is the father of Nisaba the goddess of grain, of Pabilsag who is sometimes equated with Ninurta, and sometimes of Enbilulu. By Ereshkigal Enlil was father of Namtar.
Cultural histories
Enlil is associated with the ancient city of
Nippur, sometimes referred to as the cult city of Enlil. His temple was named Ekur, "House of the Mountain." Enlil was assimilated to the north "Pole of the Ecliptic". His sacred number name was 50.
As Enlil was the only god who could reach the heaven god An he held sway over the other gods who were assigned tasks by his agent and would travel to Nippur to draw in his power. He is thus seen as the model for kingship.
At a very early period prior to 3000 BC, Nippur had become the centre of a political district of considerable extent. Inscriptions found at Nippur, where extensive excavations were carried on during 1888–1900 by John P Peters and John Henry Haynes, under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, show that Enlil was the head of an extensive pantheon. Among the titles accorded to him are "king of lands", "king of heaven and earth", and "father of the gods".
His chief temple at Nippur was known as Ekur, signifying 'House of the mountain', and such was the sanctity acquired by this edifice that Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, down to the latest days, vied with one another in embellishing and restoring Enlil's seat of worship, and the name Ekur became the designation of a temple in general.
Grouped around the main sanctuary, there arose temples and chapels to the gods and goddesses who formed his court, so that Ekur became the name for an entire sacred precinct in the city of Nippur. The name "mountain house" suggests a lofty structure and was perhaps the designation originally of the staged tower at Nippur, built in imitation of a mountain, with the sacred shrine of the god on the top.
Enlil was also the God of weather. According to the Sumerians, Enlil helped create the humans, but then got tired of their noise and tried to kill them by sending a flood. A mortal known as Utnapishtim survived the flood through the help of another god, Ea, and he was made immortal by Enlil after Enlil's initial fury.
References
External links
ETCSL "Enlil and Ninlil" and "Enlil and Sud": Unicode and ASCII.
Gateway to Babylon: "Enlil and Ninlil", trans. Thorkild Jacobsen.
ETCSL "Enlil in the Ekur": Unicode and ASCII.
Houghton-Mifflin: A Hymn to the Sky-God Enlil.
"The Song of the Hoe" in ETCSL—Songs, elegies and related compositions: Unicode and ASCII.
Category:Mesopotamian deities
Category:Sky and weather gods
Category:Fertile Crescent
![Plan of Nimrud, by Felix Jones bef.1920[4]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110825084303im_/http://cdn0.wn.com/pd/a0/b6/1425e23e14eb09bf7249bf495cc9_grande.jpg "Plan of Nimrud, by Felix Jones bef.1920[4]")
![Plan of Nimrud, by Felix Jones bef.1920[4]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110825084303im_/http://cdn9.wn.com/pd/a0/b6/1425e23e14eb09bf7249bf495cc9_thumb.jpg "Plan of Nimrud, by Felix Jones bef.1920[4]")
